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Monthly Archives: June 2013

Hello Comm 2f00 class. This is Alex Power coming to you live tonight to talk to you about this week’s Module 5 Podcast Assignment. My topic of course is Scottish Independence. The article I choose to do this week is called: Independent Scotland would miss out on overseas trade deals, says Hague. Written by: Severin Carrell, from a Scotland correspondent in the Guardian. The description of the article is as follows: Foreign secretary says vote for independence would exclude Scotland from sharing in deals brokered by UK government.

I choose this article as you can see it is written recently. It also shows the challenges that Scotland will be facing if it were to become independent. It was very important for me to have a recent article in order for me to fully understand and portray current issues.

When reviewing the articles again, I found what one music label did to be particularly interesting. In the article Cultures of Music Piracy, Ian Condy explains the “battle over online music in the US turned ugly in the summer of 2003 when the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) initiated lawsuits against its own consumers. The RIAA issued subpoenas to internet service providers demanding disclosure of the identities of computer users suspected of sharing copyrighted music files online”(p.343). I found this particularly interesting because after all the effort and lawyer fees RIAA dealt with, “thousands of music fans will face lawyer fees, possible court cases, and out-of-court settlements that are likely to cost thousands of dollars” (p.344). After everything the lawsuits we’re dropped.

I found alenasaric comments to be a great overview of the economic impact. The piracy industry has a defined presence in the economy. There is a mathamadical formula that will express in a dollar expression, the economic impact that piracy has affected our economy. However knowing this will only bring a negative conclusion to this weeks reading. I am not a person who likes to leave things on a negative note and therefore would like to leave readers inspired to change. The music and film industries need to find new alternative methods for compensation. I agree with “the technology is here to stay therefore the industry must make some adjustments and embrace it. Sometimes I feel that the industry itself does not want to compromise and that is not fair to the average consumer ”. lifeofascanner gave a great example of how our economy has been affected with Blockbuster. It made me particularly upset when Blockbuster closed because it limited my ability to buy and rent movies. I needed to rent the movie Cast Away for Marketing 4P31, and I had to drive to four stores before I could buy the movie. I was really happy to see that it was not to expensive to buy at future shops as it was on I-tunes. I believe that if we can find a way to increase accessability to music and films our economy will benefit greatly. As long as it is easy to consumers to consumer, they will. In economic we learn that increasing supply will decrease the price of an object. Little Fish agrees that we need to do something about piracy. “ As long as the price is reasonable I have no problem to pay for the music. I also love what iTunes brought to our life. It is a game changer. A place can make everybody happy. Consumers can purchase single song under $2 and without worry about to buy off the whole album”. At the end of the day if individuals are compensated for their efforts everyone is happy.

This week I will start by defining one key term that one must know in order to understand this week’s theme. “Digital piracy is a type of copyright infringement—is a global phenomenon that allegedly contains grave economic consequences for intellectual property industries. Its pervasiveness has produced a global piracy subculture”(Steinmetz, Tunnell, 2013, p.53). In today’s society digital piracy is very present. “The development of the information-based ‘New Economy’ is due in large part to the growth in industries that trade in intellectual property. These industries have been a leading sector in US economic expansion for the past two decades, and currently account for over $40 billion of the US gross national product” (McCourt, Burkart, 2003, p.333). That is a major part of the United States economy and is a lot to potentially lose. Therefore fundamental of the entertainment industries. “It suffered a slump in the mid-1990s as catalog sales reached saturation and the novelty of a new delivery system (compact discs) wore off”( McCourt, Burkart, 2003, p. 335). Supporting this industry is therefore of great importance and therefore should be taken very seriously. In the same article, the author suggestions a way in which this can be done. “Subscription prices would need to make up in volume what is lost in profitability, suggesting cost pressures and even price wars among music services. Subscriptions also would penalize chain music stores and retail outlets, which now account for 80 percent of sales in the popular music market” (p.344).

On the other hand, downloading music is a large part of our culture. It seems like everyone now a days downloads music, movies etc. In the reading “Under the Pixelated Jolly Roger”, Steinmetz and Tunnel states a study found that pirates have multiple motivations for engaging in piracy. These reasons include “a desire to share digital cultural artifacts with each other, to sample content before making a purchase, an inability to afford digital content and a desire to circumvent or undermine copyright law and the digital content industry” (p. 65).

Now to answer this weeks question. I personally do not choose to download free movies or unauthorized music downloads. However in High School I used to. I always found that my computer was affected by the spam that come with the music. I have been through a number of computer because of this reason and this is the primary reason why I do not download anymore. Something needs to be done about all the illegal downloads. I-tunes is a great effort for music to be bought legally. Nonetheless, there are still sites that allow illegal downloads and there something needs to be done about them. I personally thought the ideas brought up by RIAA recording company had the right intentions, but they went about it wrong. I would suggest that a movement like this one should be done again, but done targeting the right individuals.

I think it is fair to assume that everyone this week truly believes that the innovations and constant changes in technology are an asset. kkuhl2013 says “that It is truly amazing what one can do with a computer from the comfort of their own home”! lifeofascanner says “I too love online shopping and probably do it more than I should, the past week I have bought two pairs of shoes and was very excited when they arrived 4 days later (very fast compared to others)”. I love your style ladies! I find that I do not use the internet enough for shopping purposes. I agree with the consenses that the changes in technology allow for great convenience and for time-savings. However I was surprised and interest by Alensaric’s comments on online shopping. I believe my identity of a Canadian makes me extremely trusting and that can be a drawback for me when it comes to online shopping. I was a little surprised to hear that some people hate to pay for shipping and handling. As a customer I understand why one would not want to pay for shipping and handling but as a business student I also understand the costs of doing business online. There is always a cost associated with everything, online shopping is no different. The costs that comes with convience develops the economy and increases services that we may not use as much. For example the cost of sending a package, infuses mail services which is a service that we as a society has cut out. There is also a cost benefit analysis that the consumer needs to take into consideration. The costs associated with driving to a mail, paying for parking is just two costs associated with going to purchase an idem at a store. If the these costs are lower then the costs of shipping and handling then the decision is clear.

I love Little Fish’s comment “New media and technology really make shopping easier than before, which make me spend my money even easier”. I agree 100% and of course from a business prospective convience = success. Business want purchases to be as easy as possible as consumers will be more likely to purchase more if it is easy to do so. I also found “People have to give up something in order to gain something. Its like you will lose your privacy when you share a picture with your family members, but you can enjoy the picture from them. Hence, we are all producer and consumer on the internet’ very interesting. I appreciate the business prospective that Little Fish gave. In conclusion I will end this post by reposting kkuhl2013 comments. “The readings this week point out how economies and political powers are engaged in online activity. The further I read the more difficult I found to see boundaries which was also noted in our readings. As I stated in the initial post “In other words, some individuals believe today’s society is too restricted and others believe our society isn’t restricted enough.” Truly subjective to the individual!”

It’s true, you really can buy anything you want on the internet today. Everything from groceries to furniture, clothing to animals. In the past year I have consumers more then I have produced online. I have been a university student for four years now, and I try and stay away from a computer as much as possible. It feels like I am always on the computer for school work and it has honestly taken the fun out of consuming online. Before university I would go on the internet for personal pleasure, consuming music online, videos, interesting articles, and anything else I wanted to consume. However now I stick to researching information on my computer and producing scholarly assignments. My one guilty pleasure however is online shopping. Today all you need is a computer and a credit card, than it is delivered to your door. However, there are several issues with online security that have been drought up in the reading this week. In the article “The cultural logic of Media Convergence” the author states that media convergence is more then simple a technological shift. Convergence alters the relationship between existing technologies, industries, markets, genres and audiences”(p.34). In other words the way we operate in everything we do is constantly changing with the rate or technology. Take for instance the simple technology changes that the social media website Facebook has had since it started. These changes have allowed for faster communication, and a vast increase in exposure. “Many phases of technological futurism in the US has been hailed as new economies. In seeking the explain the rise in productivity over this period” (Miller, 2004, p.56).

“Cultural shifts, the legal battles and the economic consolidations that are fueling media convergence are preceding shifts in the technological infrastructure” (H, Jenkins, 2004, p. 34). In other words, some individuals believe today’s society is to restricted and others believe our society isn’t restricted enough. Again this can be seen in the case of Facebook, when some users want complete privacy and others wants complete openness.

Facebook and other social media website are how I produce and consume on the internet. I also use other communication websites such as g-mail and in the past Hotmail and MSN. What encourages me to consume and produce on the internet are my friends, family members, and other people or organizations that I have liked on Facebook. On the other hand the main factor that inhibits my usage of the website is my image that I am projecting to the users of websites. I always want to project what I feel is the right image of myself to the world and therefore an over exposure or over usage of the site may inhibit that image.